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Books
on Cuba
The Autobiography of a
Slave /
Bridges to Cuba/Puentes a Cuba
/
Santeria from
Africa to the New World: The Dead Sell Memories
Fidel Castro and
the Quest for a Revolutionary Culture in Cuba /
Reyita: The Life of a Black Cuban Woman in the
Twentieth
Century
Singular Like a Bird: The Art of Nancy Morejon
/
Caliban
and Other Essays /
The
Pride of Havana: A History of Cuban Baseball
Santeria
Aesthetics in Contemporary Latin America Art /
Culture and
Customs of Cuba /
Man-making Words; Selected Poems
of Nicholas Guillen
Afro-Cuban Voices: On Race and Identity on
Contemporary Cuba /
Afro-Cuba: An Anthology of Cuban Writing
on Race, Politics, and Culture
Nicolas Guillen:
Popular Poet of the Caribbean /
Selected Poetry by Nancy Morejon
/
Cuba: After the
Revolution
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*
The Quest
for the Cuban Christ
A Historical Search
By Miguel A. De La Torre
The Quest
for the Cuban Christ /
Santeria:
The Beliefs and Rituals / Ajiaco
Christianity
A
sweeping and stunning interpretation of Cuban religion and culture,
from the religious fervor that surrounded the recent Elian Gonzalez
saga in Miami
to a religious view from the underside of Cuban history.—Luis Daniel Leon, Arizona State
University
A fascinating
[and] controversial interpretation of Cuban history and religions
that should be read by anyone interested in understanding North
American Latino religions and culture.—Gaston Espinosa, University of California,
Santa Barbara
In
The Quest
for the Cuban Christ, Miguel A. De La Torre
examines symbols enriching the Cuban experience through a highly
creative historical and cultural framework. he argues that for all
Cubans, Christ must be understood through the historical analysis of
the Cuban culture and that God saves Cubans in a quintessentially
Cuban way. De La Torre juxtaposes two disciplines long considered mutually
exclusive--liberation theology and postmodernity--to test the
relationship between the faith of marginalized Cuban groups and the
overall Cuban identity. His approach challenges the Latino academic
religious community to consider seriously and acknowledge how vastly
the Cuban religious experience differs from that of other
traditions. he also confronts the proposition that Christ can be
understood through a general Latino social location.
De la Torre analyzes key figures, groups, and periods in Cuban
history as well as the ways Christ is being depicted in Cuban art
today. His focus centers on the art created by marginalized segments
of Cuban society, both in Cuba and and the United States, to
illuminate points of view from those previously silenced throughout
Cuban history. His argument moves beyond a purely spiritual reading
to explore how Christ is created by those who were and are oppressed
by the Cuban culture, a theme that he uses to debunk the Christ of
the powerful and privileged who until recently have been the sole
arbiters of the Cuban identity.
The Quest for the Historical Cuban Christ
(an abstract)—Miguel De La Torre
Anyone who reads the Bible does so from a
particular social location. We are all born into an ongoing society
that shapes us. When we turn our attention to the biblical text as
the source for understanding whom Christ was, we participate in a
dialogue between the written word and the meanings the dominant
community taught us to give to these words. Cubans, specially those
living in the diaspora, have been taught to read the Bible through
the eyes of white, middle-class Anglo males. Yet, can the text speak
to us through our own culture? To do so, it must be read with Cuban
eyes.
This book argues that Christ can be understood
through the historical development of Cuban culture. Clement of
Alexandria once said, "God saved the Jews in a Jewish way, the
barbarians in a barbarian way." The Brazilian Liberation
Theologian Carlos Mesters says, "God saves Brazilians in a
Brazilian way, blacks in a black way, Indians in an Indian way,
Nicaraguans in a Nicaraguan way, and so on." I would add, God
saves Cubans in a Cuban way.
As I shall argue, God’s movement in Cuban
history translates both Christian principles and an understanding of
Christ into cultural symbols understood by all Cubans, Resident and
Exilic. The Christ of the conquistadores, the apotheosis of Martí
as the ideal Cuban Christ, the Black Christ of the African slaves,
the understanding of Christ through Marianism and Cuban feminism,
and the Biblical Christ of both Catholics and Protestants are all a
part of, if not central, to Cuban identity.
As such, Cubans must come to terms with these
socio-historical dimensions formulated within the depths of our
culture. By seriously reevaluating these cultural symbols, we can
find rich resources for understanding ourselves and provide a
Christian response to the present estrangement existing between
Resident and Exilic Cubans.
The book will begin with a brief overview of the
Euro-centric project concerning the "quest for the historical
Jesus." Upon concluding that a Euro-centric Christ is impotent
for Cubans, the book will begin a historical analysis of Cuban
culture to discover a Christ, who like us, is Cuban. The book will
begin with an understanding of the Christ brought to the Island by
the conquistadores and its evolution to the Spanish Christ of
Unamuno.
With independence from Spain, the Cuban
understanding of Christ further developed through the influence of
Cuban slaves, the early twentieth century Cuban feminist movement,
and Martí. More recently, Liberation Theology and Revolution
Theology contributed to our understanding of Christ.
The final chapter of this work will tie together
all of these diverse trends by turning our attention to how Christ
is presently being depicted through Cuban art, both on the Island,
and in the States. Paintings, being revelatory, provide the observer
with insight about, and an entry into reality. Several works by
Cuban artists will be reviewed for the purpose of depicting the
mysteries of God, the construction of a Cuban Christ, and the search
for a common intra-Cuban identity. * *
* * * Dr. De la Torre is a Cuban, a professor of
religion at Hope college, with specialization in Christian
Social Ethics, Theologies of Liberation and
Postmodern/Postcolonial Studies. He is the author of a seminal
article on the denial of racism in Cuba entitled, "Masking
Hispanic Racism: A Cuban Case Study": "I
am a recovering racist, a product of two race-constructed
societies. Exilic
Cubans see themselves as white and the Island's inhabitants as
mostly black." "A major issue which will
arise in a post-Castro Cuba is intra-Cuban race relations, an
issue mostly ignored because of the myth proclaiming Cubans as
non-racists. I propose to debunk this myth. Any serious
discourse on intra-Cuban reconciliation must unmask the hidden
tension existing between seemingly white Exilic Cuba and black
Resident Cuba."
For the rest of this fascinating article,
see
http://www.hope.edu/delatorre/articles/jhlt.html * *
* * *
Philosophy of Pedagogy
My educational development has been
significantly influenced by Paulo Freire's work, Pedagogy of
the Oppressed, which, doubting the existence of an objective,
neutral educational system, finds its students lead toward either
domestication or liberation. All too often, the educational system
serves to normalize existing power structures contributing to
maintaining a "culture of silence." Our advance
consumer-society rapidly dehumanizes individuals into Objects who
concur with the rationality of the present system. The role of the
educator, as I see it, is to facilitate the student's consummation
of their ontological vocation in becoming a Subject. My task as a
professor is to cultivate the student's ability to find their own
voice by creating an environment in where individual and
collective consciousness-raising can occur.
In order to construct a response to injustice
and oppression, I have taught classes combining liberationist
perspectives with postmodern analysis. Upon the tension created by
these diverse narratives, I have constructed an approach to
religious studies from the periphery providing a unique outlook to
the normative discourse, a view I believe enhances traditional
curricula. Because individuals enter the educational system with a
lifetime of experiences and knowledge, courses can be designed to
bring their suppositions into conversation with postmodern and
liberationist paradigms. Students partake in forming a learning
environment by leading segments of the discourse and participating
in projects to encourage the interweaving of scholastic rigor with
their personal backgrounds.
As both my curriculum vitae and corporate résumé
indicate, I posses practical and academic knowledge in public
policy and economics, specializing in how the socio-political
culture normalizes the oppression of the Other. My controversial
approach to marginalized theologies (specifically Latino/a) moves
beyond what Edward Said terms "the rhetoric of blame" by
concentrating upon intra-ethnic structures of oppressions. A
review of the articles I have published, the papers I have
presented and the courses I have taught demonstrate and are
consistent with my focus in analyzing race, class, and gender
oppression.
Publications:
Doing
Christian Ethics from the
Margins. Orbis Press, forthcoming in 2004.
Handbook of U.S. Theologies of Liberation.
Chalice Press, forthcoming in 2004.
Santería: The Beliefs and Rituals of a
Growing Religion in America. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
Co., forthcoming in 2003.
La Lucha for Cuba: Religion and
Politics on the Streets of Miami. University of
California Press, forthcoming in 2003.
The Quest for the Cultural Cuban
Christ: A Historical Search. University Press of
Florida, forthcoming, in Fall 2002.
Reading the Bible from the Margins. Orbis Press, forthcoming in May, 2002.
Introduction to Hispanic Theology:
Latino/a Perspectives, co-authored with Edwin Aponte,
Orbis Press, 2001.
Ajiaco Christianity: Toward an Exilic
Cuban Ethic of Reconciliation, Ph.D. diss., Temple
University, 1999.
* * *
* *
* * * * *
|
Santeria:
The Beliefs and Rituals
of a Growing Religion in America
By Miguel A. De La Torre This book by Miguel De la Torre offers a
fascinating guide to the history, beliefs, rituals, and culture
of Santeria -- a religious tradition that, despite persecution,
suppression, and its own secretive nature, has close to a
million adherents in the United States alone. Santeria is a religion with Afro-Cuban roots,
rising out of the cultural clash between the Yoruba people of
West Africa and the Spanish Catholics who brought them to the
Americas as slaves. As a faith of the marginalized and
persecuted, it gave oppressed men and women strength and the
will to survive. With the exile of thousands of Cubans in the
wake of Castro's revolution in 1959, Santeria came to the United
States, where it is gradually coming to be recognized as a
legitimate faith tradition. |
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* *
 |
The Brilliant Disaster
JFK, Castro, and America's Doomed Invasion of Cuba's Bay of Pigs
By Jim Rasenberger
My telling of the Bay of Pigs thing will certainly not be the first. On the contrary, thousands of pages of official reports, journalism, memoir, and scholarship have been devoted to the invasion, including at least two exceptional books: Haynes Johnson’s emotionally charged account published in 1964 and Peter Wyden’s deeply reported account from 1979. This book owes a debt to both of those, and to many others, as well as to thousands of pages of once-classified documents that have become available over the past fifteen years, thanks in part to the efforts of the National Security Archives, an organization affiliated with George Washington University that seeks to declassify and publish government files. These newer sources, including a CIA inspector general’s report, written shortly after the invasion and hidden away in a vault for decades, and a once-secret CIA history compiled in the 1970s, add depth and clarity to our understanding of the event and of the men who planned it and took part in it. . . . |
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The New Jim Crow
Mass Incarceration in the Age of
Colorblindness
By Michele Alexander
Contrary to the
rosy picture of race embodied in Barack
Obama's political success and Oprah
Winfrey's financial success, legal
scholar Alexander argues vigorously and
persuasively that [w]e have not ended
racial caste in America; we have merely
redesigned it. Jim Crow and legal racial
segregation has been replaced by mass
incarceration as a system of social
control (More African Americans are
under correctional control today... than
were enslaved in 1850). Alexander
reviews American racial history from the
colonies to the Clinton administration,
delineating its transformation into the
war on drugs. She offers an acute
analysis of the effect of this mass
incarceration upon former inmates who
will be discriminated against, legally,
for the rest of their lives, denied
employment, housing, education, and
public benefits. Most provocatively, she
reveals how both the move toward
colorblindness and affirmative action
may blur our vision of injustice: most
Americans know and don't know the truth
about mass incarceration—but her
carefully researched, deeply engaging,
and thoroughly readable book should
change that.—Publishers
Weekly |
 |
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The White Masters of the
World
From
The World and Africa, 1965
By W. E. B. Du Bois
W. E. B. Du Bois’
Arraignment and Indictment of White Civilization
(Fletcher)
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Ancient African Nations
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Negro Digest /
Black World
Browse all issues
1950
1960
1965
1970
1975
1980
1985
1990
1995
2000
____ 2005
Enjoy!
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The Death of Emmett Till by Bob Dylan
/
The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll
/
Only a Pawn in Their Game
Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson Thanks America for
Slavery /
George Jackson /
Hurricane Carter
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The Journal of Negro History issues at Project Gutenberg
The
Haitian Declaration of Independence 1804
/
January 1, 1804 -- The Founding of
Haiti
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updated 28 July 2008
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